


if I only could

by orphan_account



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Anxiety, Depression, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, One Shot, POV Loki (Marvel), Prompt Fill, Sibling Incest, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Prompt: "Dealing with a debilitating sports injury "-His brother always had a sad streak when the mood struck, but since the injury it’s only gotten worse. Loki takes to doing silly things for Thor while their mother is at work. Brushes and braids his brother's hair. Reads him entire novels. Paints his nails because Thor does nothing to stop him from doing it. He puts up with all Loki does to him. Puts up with the constant closeness, and never complains. It takes a while for Loki to realize, maybe, that Thor enjoys it.





	if I only could

Thor hurts his spine a week after he gets a full ride to the university with the top ranked football team in the country. He has emergency surgery and lives and it's the worst day and a half of Loki's life.  


Loki doesn't think he'll ever get over the fact Thor survived an orthopedic decapitation. Because of course he would.

Loki stands in the doorway, watches his brother lie on his back in bed, up towards the ceiling. Just stands there and watches Thor pretend to sleep. Watches his brother cry and pretend he isn’t and hasn’t been since they got back from the hospital.

\--

“They’ll drop me,” he worries over breakfast, taken in his room upstairs because he refuses to come down for anything. Loki sits there and listens, chewing thoughtfully. “They’ll drop me from the team. I won’t get my funding. I won't be well enough when my deferment's up.”

“You won’t be dropped, Thor. You just won't be able to go through a metal detector again without setting it off. Your head'll light up like the Eiffel Tower."  


Thor ignores the joke. “You think they’ll understand a fusion? I’ll be fucking dropped and I’ll have to decline the acceptance to the college altogether because I don’t have the--” he cuts himself off, lowering his rising voice, “I don’t have the fucking grades to get in on my own.”

“You’ll get in,” Loki insists, because he has to. It’s all Thor’s talked about for seven years. “They’ll understand. It’d be cruel to drop you completely.”

Thor shakes his head, and Loki hates how his eyes are wet already. His brother never cried before getting hurt. Now he cries at everything, all the time. At the drop of a hat, over little things as much as the overwhelming Big One. Loki worries about Thor now, and he never used to do that either.

He’s been having nightmares since that last practice. In his dreams he sees Thor being bent over backwards, neck craning too far back on the grass. He always wakes up exhausted, and has to remind himself that no, Thor didn’t die from a broken neck.

Just got his spine fused instead to keep it from happening again.

The only option, they said.

Loki wonders about that.

\--

Loki wishes he was the one who got hurt. It would be easier, Loki thinks.

When he tells Thor this one afternoon over lunch, his brother weeps and shouts and doesn't talk to him for days.

\--

The scout calls him three months later.

Loki’s only just managed to get Thor out of bed and downstairs that morning. He can’t stop smiling even though his brother is still sulking. He wants Thor to get some sun. It’s been too long since he’s seen Thor’s hair shine like he’s so used to.

Loki only knows it’s The Call when he watches Thor’s face morph from sulky to enraged, then to nothing at all.

He goes back upstairs, walking stiffly and carefully like he's come to do, without a word.

Loki lets himself have a good cry in the bathroom before heading upstairs after him. He sleeps in Thor’s room for the rest of the week, then the month, then he moves his own bed in beside Thor’s and they share a room for the first time since they were little.

\--

Frigga divorces Odin a year later. It’s been a long time coming.

The day their father leaves the house for the last time, he weeps into Thor’s arms in a last hug, makes them promise to never lose touch and always hang out and always do things together and never lose the relationship they have.

Four days before, when Odin was drunk, he’d punched Thor in the jaw and called him a disappointment.

Thor’s arms don’t quite lift all the way when Odin bullies his way into them.

Loki tells their father to fuck off, and drags Thor away.

\--

Loki doesn’t go to college. He finds work from home. Because Thor has gotten sad.

His brother always had a sad streak when the mood struck, but since the injury it’s only gotten worse. Loki takes to doing silly things for Thor while their mother is at work. Brushes and braids his brother's hair. Reads him entire novels. Paints his nails because Thor does nothing to stop him from doing it. He puts up with all Loki does to him. Puts up with the constant closeness, and never complains. It takes a while for Loki to realize, maybe, that Thor enjoys it.  


Their mother thinks something is wrong with them. That they’re depressed shut-ins. And Loki wants to say that’s only half right. And he gets angry for a long time because he’s not being seen or heard and he’s doing everything he can.

\--

But Thor sees him.

Thor watches him.

Loki likes to fall asleep with his brother’s eyes on him. Makes him feel surrounded in a way nothing else does. It’s one of his favorite things since moving into Thor’s room.

One night, he falls asleep to Thor watching him, telling him something about a book he read recently, and wakes to Thor climbing in beside him. His arms are hot where they wind around his bare waist and it makes Loki shiver. He shrugs closer to his brother’s chest to chase the chill of the surrounding air away and feels Thor’s breath hitch in response.

He sleeps great.

\--

Loki wakes up late the next day. He can tell by the soft orange light filling the room that it’s already the afternoon.

Thor is awake and staring at him. He smiles and Loki goes warm all over. Thor’s arms squeeze him around the waist and haul him closer and Loki turns away, knowing his breath must be terrible. Thor’s is, after all.

He expects Thor to jostle him, throw him off the bed, start a pillow fight, something. But he just holds Loki close. Hums against his cheek and closes his eyes.

A wild thought comes to him. That he could turn his face two inches to the right and they’d be kissing. And he turns his face two inches to the right, slides his lips along his brother’s.

Thor hums a second time, melting into it. He kisses easy and slow, like it’s not the first time they’ve done this, even though it is. Even though it should be sending each of them running in horror. But Loki just moans a little, and gets embarrassed until Thor clutches him even closer and kisses him a little harder.

\--

It’s a secret. Their secret. All day Loki’s expected to feel guilty about it. About not only the actual act of having mildly made out with his brother in bed, but also the memory of how Thor had sighed and pulled away because he had to finally get up and pee. The memory of how his pajama bottoms were tented as he shuffled away, yawning.

He was unashamed. Loki wonders how Thor can do that. But then he remembers he hasn’t felt ashamed even once and thinks that must be how.

\--

Loki puts off coming to bed right away. He’s a little afraid. They haven’t talked about it all day. And he’s not sure it’ll happen again, and if he’s being honest with himself, he already knew from the second it happened he didn’t want it to stop. Ever. And maybe that’s a little bit of a scary thing to tell his brother-who-he-also-made-out-with-this-morning, considering everything.

But finally, he has to go to bed or it’ll look strange, being in the shower for so long.

He puts his hair up and dresses and heads to their room.

Thor is in his own bed, staring at the ceiling.

Loki internally panics, because he’s not in Loki’s bed. He doesn’t want it to happen again. He doesn’t want it to continue. He doesn’t want Loki.

But then Thor turns his head to smile at him, and then winces, pained. Loki knows that look, and he feels guilty not only for thinking Thor would disown him (which might honestly still be on the table) but also for feeling so relieved to know it’s his back bothering him and not necessarily what happened this morning.

Loki shuts their door and goes to his brother’s side. Thor’s smile wobbles.

“Ice?”

“Please.”

Loki goes and gets the ice pack and a pain pill.

When he’s back at Thor’s side, he helps him settle again. Watches his throat bob as he swallows the pill. Wonders if he’s allowed to watch for other reasons now.

“Tomorrow I won’t be moving much I don’t think.”

“That’s okay.”

Thor sniffles and Loki climbs in next to him. He hugs Thor’s side and silently rejoices when Thor’s arm settles around his back, rubbing little circles.

“You have such soft skin.”

Loki huffs at that. “Thor,” he starts, steeling himself. “About this morning--”

Thor cuts him off. “I’m sorry I can’t do much tonight. I wanted to--I want to do a lot of things--I just.” He sniffles again and Loki feels brave.

He rises to an elbow and leans over Thor, whose eyes are red and watery and blue enough to fight the sky. He leans down until their noses brush.

“Is this okay for your back, your neck?”

Thor nods, closes his eyes and brings his arms up to smooth across Loki’s shoulders. Loki ends up lying half on top of him, and they kiss so long his lips go numb. Thor whimpers into his mouth when Loki bites at his lower lip and it’s a small sort of language Loki finds he enjoys very much.

Thor’s hips roll towards the air, so Loki slides a hand down to grab at a hip and knead the rolling muscles through the flannel material, careful not to bend him any which way that could hurt him. But Thor snakes a hand of his own down to encourage Loki fully atop him. Loki breaks away first.

“It won’t hurt you?”

Thor is out of breath, cheeks flushed rosy red. Loki wants to eat him whole.

“Straddling one leg should be fine. I’ll let you know.”

Loki, nervous, lifts a leg to settle between Thor’s. While neither of them are exactly shy--Loki knows a little too much about Thor’s pre-existing love life, and vice versa--it’s different like this. Because of who they are--

Thor grabs the back of his thighs and rolls his hips gently again, rubbing himself against Loki’s leg and really, that’s all Loki needed to know. He lowers himself down and swallows his fears, lets himself melt into Thor’s arms as they move together.

It’s not that it’s not surprising, all of it. It’s that it’s easy, almost a little too easy, coming apart in each other’s arms. Too easy to hear the way Thor raggedly whispers his name in the end. Too easy for Thor to grab his ass and urge him onward as he bites down hard on Loki’s lip in some kind of splendid revenge.

Easy too, to fall asleep after they get cleaned up.

Too easy to mean a little more when Loki says his usual, “Good night, love you.”

Far too easy to hear it returned.


End file.
